[PFS] Help my salvage my Vigilante, please


Advice

Dark Archive

You ever get an idea in your head that sounds fun, and you play it for a while, but you realize all too late that you might have made something that's a little weak?

So I've got this dex based unarmed Vigilante, makes use of Two Weapon Fighting and Enforcer and a Cruel enchant on her amulet of mighty fists to disable enemies. All the while, I use Snake Style for both theme and defense against touch attacks. With the Vigilante talents making up for damage, I thought it was gonna be great! But after playing for a while in the mid levels, I've realized my accuracy is pretty awful.

My options for attack routines are as follows.
Unarmed Strike: +15/10, 1d3+10
Unarmed Strike, Power Attack: +12/8, 1d3+16
Unarmed Strike, Two Weapon Fighting: +13/13/8/8, 1d3+10 and 1d3+9
Unarmed Strike, TWF and PA: +10/10/5/5, 1d3+16 and 1d3+12

Here's the general statblock:
Lisena the Serpent
Vishkanya Avenger Vigilante 8 (FCB: Skill Points)
NG Medium Humanoid
Init +6

AC 26, touch 17, flat-footed 21 (+9 Armor, +5 Dex, +2 deflection)
hp 59 (8d8+16)
Fort +6, Ref+14, Will +7, +8 vs Poison

Speed 30 ft
Melee: Unarmed Strike +15/10, 1d3+10
Ranged: Composite Longbow +14/9, 1d8+1

Str 12, Dex 22, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 14
BAB +8, CMB +9, CMD 25
Feats: (b)Weapon Finesse, (b) Improved Unarmed Strike, Two Weapon Fighting, Snake Style, Enforcer, (b)Power Attack, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, (b) Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike, (b) Weapon Specialization: Unarmed Strike
Notable skills: Bluff +12, Disguise +16 (+20 in Social Identity), Fly +14, Intimidcate +18, Perception +15, Sense Motive +16 (+20 in Social Identity), Stealth +17, Use Magic Device +9

Here's the list of Vigilante Talents as well as her relevant magic items:
Vigilante Talents
Fist of the Avenger: Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, add half level to unarmed strike damage
Lethal Grace: Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, add half level to finessed attacks that still use Strength for damage
Shield of Blades: Power Attack as a bonus feat, add Power Attack penalty as a shield bonus to AC for one round when using Power Attack.
Signature Weapon (Unarmed Strike): Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization as bonus feats.

Social Talent
Social Grace: +4 to Disguise and Sense Motive while in Social Identity
Renown
Quick Change
Mocking Bird

Magical Items:
+3 Mithral Breastplate
+2 Ring of Deflection
+2 Belt of Incredible Dexterity
Amulet of Mighty Fists, Cruel enhancement (Striking Demoralized enemies Sickens them for one round)
Circlet of Persuasion
Cloak of Resistance +2
Headband of Intelligence (ranks of Fly)
Several potions of Fly
Several potions of Blessed Fist (+1 enhancement to unarmed strikes, unarmed counts as Good for beating DR)
Handy Haversack
Two Mithral Kukris, one of which has a level 4 Heightened Continual Flame cast on it
Faction Boon that increases nonlethal damage by +1
Masterwork Tool for Stealth

TWF makes the best use of the free damage from Fist of the Avenger and Deadly Grace, while Power Attack gives me some good AC as well as more base damage. But when I use both, I can barely hit for squat, and I spend a lot of time looking silly.

I just hit level 9 without allocating anything yet, I have 9k gold to spare, and enough Prestige points to retrain as many feats as I need to. Shame I can't retrain Vigilante Talents. What sorts of PFS-legal options do you think I can take to try and salvage this poor thing? Items? Feats? Talents? Should I just give up on the TWF? Pretend Power Attack doesn't exist?


A level of savage technologist barbarian gives you +4 DEX/STR when raging. And you could take extra rage with your L9 feat.

Pale Green Cracked Ioun Stone (+1 competence to hit)
Boots of Speed (to work towards since it's 12k)
Change out your amulet to one with a straight enhancement to hit (or if you take barbarian furious).


The vigilante has similar issues to core monk, full bab, twf penalty, and no in class attack boosters. Which kinda means per attack is not a good feat, you can't handling the accuracy loss.

I second savage technologist as likely the best way to fix this. And then aiming fit furious on your amulet, that would net you +3 over what you'd be at without dipping, and the str increase hellos you damage so your not missing out there either


I don't think you have mathed correctly your attack or damage.

Also you have no enhancement bonus to hit, at level 9 that is pretty reasonable to have.

+3 mithril BP is a trap, one you've over spent on the plus compared to other AC options, and two you are already at the max dex with only a 2 dex belt (something else due for an upgrade, and will add more to hit)

Lastly, power attack is only situationally a good idea with TWF for many besides the vigilante

Liberty's Edge

You can add Bodywraps of Mighty Striking in addition to the amulet of Mighty fists. This would give you an enhancement bonus to at least some attacks. Also there might be some good buffs you can put on a wand. Reduce Person or Alter Self is a +2 to hit for you, without losing much damage.

Dark Archive

nicholas storm wrote:

A level of savage technologist barbarian gives you +4 DEX/STR when raging. And you could take extra rage with your L9 feat.

Pale Green Cracked Ioun Stone (+1 competence to hit)
Boots of Speed (to work towards since it's 12k)
Change out your amulet to one with a straight enhancement to hit (or if you take barbarian furious).

ST Barbarian seems like an odd change of flavor for the character, but the mechanics are solid. I'll have to give it a look and see if there are any rage powers that catch my fancy.

plaidwandering wrote:

I don't think you have mathed correctly your attack or damage.

Also you have no enhancement bonus to hit, at level 9 that is pretty reasonable to have.

+3 mithril BP is a trap, one you've over spent on the plus compared to other AC options, and two you are already at the max dex with only a 2 dex belt (something else due for an upgrade, and will add more to hit)

Lastly, power attack is only situationally a good idea with TWF for many besides the vigilante

I double checked the math on my attacks. It seems to add up. The trick is in the tiny bonuses I get from so many sources. As for the enhancehent bonus, I wanted to rush for Cruel first. A +1 enhancement brings it up to a net +2, which has proven to be excessively expensive for an amulet. So far potions of Blessed Fist have covered me for that but I know that tactic will reach a point where +1 isn't enough. Then again, I think I might have already passed that particular threshold.

The breastplate seemed fairly efficient, with a net Armor + Max Dex that would exceed the kind of AC that I would get from just a Mithral Chain Shirt or any other kind of light armor. What would you suggest for protection?

And yeah. TWF and PA are too much of a combined penalty. I'm seriously considering swapping out the TWF feats. Would it work well if I sold the necklace, retrained the TWF feats, and tried for something like an Elven Curved Blade?

Badblood wrote:

You can add Bodywraps of Mighty Striking in addition to the amulet of Mighty fists. This would give you an enhancement bonus to at least some attacks. Also there might be some good buffs you can put on a wand. Reduce Person or Alter Self is a +2 to hit for you, without losing much damage.

Bodywraps may be useful if I want to stay unarmed but drop TWF. Thanks. And I wasn't thinking about Reduce Person. I'll consider it, but it kinda clashes with the Intimidate-using nature of the characters.


You're probably better off staying twf and dropping power attack, you have a lot of damage added to them, and it would be shame to waste those talents

Dark Archive

Chess Pwn wrote:
You're probably better off staying twf and dropping power attack, you have a lot of damage added to them, and it would be shame to waste those talents

That's one of the awkward parts though. Power Attack is tied to a talent so I kind of feel obligated to use it. Plus, it helps make my AC not garbage with the free shield bonus.

Grand Lodge

Some options. Drop power attack and Snake style (I know it's thematic). Start working toward jabbing style.

If you don't like Savage technologist, Urban blood conduit bloodrager is a more controlled rage so more accuracy and it gets improved unarmed strike freeing up a feat for retraining (to start down the jabbing style tree). Give up your bloodline power for a familiar and give it a menacing amulet of mighty fist. Make it a mauler viper for a flank buddy. Plus you now can use a bunch of awesome wands you could use.

Unchained barbarian would be a perfect dip. Temp hp help keep you up and you get a boost to attack damage and will. Should help cover your low AC

Take outflank with a partner.

Grab a skill focus knowledge eldritch heritage arcane and get a mauler familiar that way.

Grand Lodge

Also if you are using your Dex to attack you don't get the ac bonus. So the talent is doing nothing for you.

Dark Archive

Grandlounge wrote:
Also if you are using your Dex to attack you don't get the ac bonus. So the talent is doing nothing for you.

Uhm... really? Damn. That's just... wow.

Yeah okay. I think character theme is something that's going to have to take a hit to make this work. I'm far less skittish about a Barbarian dip now. Hell, if I can, I may just retrain out of some Vigilante levels too.

Grand Lodge

Barbarians don't have to be loud angry when in a rage. Think about the way some movie villains rage. They get quite, scary quiet, walk slowly across the room cracking their knuckles.

Controlled rage is perfect for this.

Useful items for ioun stone +1 to attack, Deliquescent gloves, you can use a shield without effecting uas, Ioun stone for AC. Urban blood rager I recommend will get you access to furious enhancement which is awesome.

Dark Archive

Grandlounge wrote:

Barbarians don't have to be loud angry when in a rage. Think about the way some movie villains rage. They get quite, scary quiet, walk slowly across the room cracking their knuckles.

Controlled rage is perfect for this.

It's kind of funny. I've got an Unchained Barbarian with a Swashbuckler dip who plays with this style. Going for the idea of a noble fencer who has 'anger issues' and just happens to adapt 'a very aggressive stance' in combat.

From the looks of things, going into Unchained Barbarian and picking up Extra Rage seems to be a legit tactic, and very direct for what I need. I think I can still pull off TWF if I don't also use Power Attack. And since Power Attack is tied to a talent that I can't retrain, I'll just have to be satisfied as using it as a backup option for when DR is getting in my way. Hell, I may go deeper in and see if I can't get me a nifty rage power or two.

Various flavors of Bloodrager and Barbarian merit further exploration. I might find a bloodline that works well for her. If nothing else, bodyguard tumor familiar.

Thanks for the tip on the Deliquescent gloves. My next upgrade is a toss-up between those, a +4 belt, or making my Amulet into a +1/Cruel (or a Furious/Cruel). Also, I may just buy an actual shield to boost my AC.

Grand Lodge

Ya sometimes we need to make some accommodations to flavour to make a character work but it is the nature of some builds. You should be able to retrain talents double check the retraining rules if you want to.

If you come up against hardness or Dr you can't pass stopping twf and switching to power attack is a good option. Better yet if you have a back up weapon you can two hand the hardness will be easily over come.

Hope you find something your happy with good luck.

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